Russ Never Sleeps

[kentuck]

http://www.observer.com/20060327/20060327_Chris_Lehmann_pageone_coverstory1.asp

Politicians and Pundits Are Afraid,’ Says Wisconsin’s Feingold, As Democrats Abandon Him on Bush Wiretap Censure Motion; Will Senator Become the Eugene McCarthy of ’08 Primaries?

<snip>
None of this fits any of the tried-and-true formulations in the red-and-blue American playbook. A mild- mannered Midwestern Senator—Russ Feingold—announces on a Sunday-morning chat show that he’s going to introduce a resolution to censure the President. His grounds are straightforward: that the President’s warrantless-wiretapping initiative violates the law and the constitutional separation of powers. His party’s leaders, all universally understood as coastal-elite figures drunk on their hatred of the President and hell-bent on his undoing—well, they flee en masse, literally hiding behind each other as inquiring reporters try to suss out what they make of the proposal.

“Both Democratic politicians and pundits are afraid,” Mr. Feingold said on March 21 by phone. He was between constituent tours during the week’s Congressional recess. “Time and again, they allow themselves to be intimidated from taking a strong stand against the administration.”

Mr. Feingold said that he came to the idea of censure after three months of watching the N.S.A. issue wend its way through Congress and flail slowly into nothingness. “Even though Specter was trying to hold hearings, they were weak. Gonzales wasn’t addressing the issue. They were putting up a brick wall—their legal arguments were not persuasive.

“Then, when they briefed the Intelligence Committee on the program—well, all I can say is that it was amazing how little we were told. All they get to do is listen to the administration—even when the administration doesn’t feel like talking. And then there was this proposal to break up the Intelligence Committee so that it could work even less effectively.”
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[Jackpine Radical]

1. I support Russ with all my heart, and this article explains a lot

of my motivation. Watching the complicit Corporate Dems is driving me up the wall. I just know that the 3-P's--the Powers, the Principalities, and the Press, who actually decide what happens here--have decided it's gonna be Hillary against maybe McCain, and it disgusts me.

Russ is my guy, I've been voting for him since his first senate race in '92, and I'm glad a few others are getting to see him for who he is.